" In light of Ignatius' 'Two Standards' and 'The Mystries Done From The Garden To The House Of Annas', at any moment we can be Judas or Peter, a Christian life can be a fine line."

Friday, May 24, 2013

Fairfield University And Fairfield Prep

Fairfield University
and Fairfield Prep are so tightly bound into Fairfield's fabric that it
seems like they've been here forever. In fact, having arrived in the
early 1940s, they're relative newcomers to our colonial town. How did
Fairfield end up with a centrally-located, 200-acre Jesuit campus? It's
an intriguing story of the dispersal of a prominent Fairfield family,
fortunes made and lost, and uncannily-timed, extraordinarily favorable
transfers of real estate. The Society of Jesus
has a centuries-long tradition of teaching. By the fall of 1941, there
were two dozen Jesuit colleges and universities in the United States.
But amid Fordham, Holy Cross and Boston College, the Jesuit New England Province envisioned a preparatory school and college in the greater Bridgeport area. The initial search for a suitable campus came up empty. But just then, word came that the heirs of Oliver Gould Jennings were selling Mailands, his 40-room mansion on 76 of the finest acres in Fairfield. In 1920, on the strength of an estimated $80 million fortune, Lashar built Hearthstone Hall, a lavish, 44-room English manor house
on 105 acres right next door to Mailands. But Lashar's fortune went up
in smoke in the 1929 stock market crash, and the few million dollars
that remained was hardly enough to support a Hearthstone Hall lifestyle.
After the real-estate taxes went unpaid for several years, the town
seized the property -- almost to the day of the Jesuits' Mailands
purchase. In early 1942, First Selectman John Ferguson approached the Jesuits with an offer they couldn't refuse. As reported in the April 1, 1942, Bridgeport Post, the Jesuits
snapped up the Hearthstone Hall estate for back taxes and some fees, or
$68,500. What could Ferguson have been thinking? Perhaps he didn't want the
town to be saddled with maintaining the deserted estate; perhaps he
foresaw the benefits of Fairfield becoming a college town. Whatever his
reasoning, the sale was widely considered a giveaway, and contributed to
Ferguson's failure to be re-nominated for another term. So, faster than you could say "Saint Ignatius of Loyola," the Jesuits
owned a splendid 180-acre campus and what would become McAuliffe and
Bellarmine halls. A few years later, for a stiff $28,500, the college
added the 18-acre Morehouse property on the corner of Barlow and Round
Hill roads. In 1989, an expanding Fairfield University acquired the Sisters of
Notre Dame de Namur convent, conveniently adjacent to the old Mailands
property. In creating the Dolan Campus, it became the indirect
beneficiary of the catastrophic decline of John Fox In the early 1950s, Mr. Fox, who once owned a controlling interest in
Western Union, bought a 47-acre estate, complete with a 21-room mansion,
which had been built for Oliver G.'s son, Lawrence. A costly adventure
in the Boston newspaper business brought Fox to total ruin, and the
Sisters took possession in 1959. Fox, a Harvard Law graduate and
once-powerful tycoon, eked out a living playing piano in Boston
waterfront bars until he died penniless and alone in 1985. The alternate fate of the grand estates from a past age that make up
today's Fairfield University complex cannot be known. What would
Fairfield be like if we had a corporate headquarters on North Benson
Road or a hillside full of McMansions instead? Who knows. But the
Jesuits, perhaps with some divine assistance, have delivered unto us a
cultural and educational asset and a driver of the town's economy. With
dissenting opinions duly noted from those of us enduring student
misbehavior in the beach neighborhood, I think we're the richer for it.

About Me

I am not a Jesuit, nor am I a cleric. I spent about 5 years under the spiritual direction of a Jesuit, 3 of those years in a weekly directed retreat in everyday life. The profound impact that the Society and the Excercises had upon my life, resulted in me, trying to deal with that impact in some way by sharing my view of Jesus Christ with others. My intention is to pull together Jesuitical and Catholic subjects that interest me. I was born on the feast day of St. Paul Miki, S.J.. I am the father of three small children and an infant, I am married to a great wife.